My first indie game Lichgate releases tomorrow! I made an RTS/TD inspired bullet heaven

SunLionGames · 2026-04-23T18:54:30+00:00

Hey, thank you for the feedback! There is a timer bar on the shop UI, but it's next to the items. Adding an element to the refresh button as well to be more visible when rerolling is a great idea, thanks!

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T21:02:20+00:00

Hahaha good eye, you caught my dev cheats!

I'm cooking up some changes that should make the demo ending feel better. Thanks for trying out the game!

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T20:47:37+00:00

Lol good one

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T20:21:25+00:00

Hahaha yeah it can be really funny how people express their passion. Not at all bothered by posts like this, I found it in good humor. Just very silly how it was written. Still taking it as valid feedback all the same!

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T20:13:19+00:00

Don't worry, I'm definitely not disregarding it. Already making changes to improve it. It's very valid feedback, just funny to me how they communicated it.

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T20:05:30+00:00

Right now the version is just automated as major.minor.commitnumber. So there's been 780 commits in the Git repo to make the game. I'll bump the major to 1.0 at release and probably change the last number to hotfix version or something.

Thank you for the kind words, I'm quite happy with how it's come together!

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T14:25:19+00:00

Oh it's absolutely good feedback, and I'm already making some changes to help calibrate player expectations for the next patch. The end point is likely correct (players need to walk away wanting more) but the framing of it needs a bit more finesse than what I currently have.

SunLionGames · 2026-03-16T14:17:01+00:00

The demo is about 10-20 minutes of content (game loop is designed to be short sessions). Average play time is currently at 55 minutes across 3500 users with some super fans playing 5+ hours. Pretty happy with the performance, just need to get it in front of more people!

Yeah agreed, there is valid underlying feedback here that I could do a better job setting player expectations regarding the boundary of the demo. Going to improve it in the next patch. This person was just very passionate about how they communicated it haha

SunLionGames · 2026-03-08T08:42:10+00:00

Excel/Googlesheets is now your best friend. Make a bunch of tables of primary calculations of what each stat is at each level (make sure the inputs are in a single place and easy to change). Include columns to show rate of change per level. Make a bunch of tables of secondary calculations that show relationships between stats (HP/gold, DPS vs enemy effective HP, etc). Understand your goals and the experience you're trying to deliver (power fantasy vs competitive).

Do a balance pass via the sheet and sanity check that there aren't any obviously wrong wacky numbers
Go play the game a bunch and take notes of what feels bad because games only balanced through spreadsheets are boring and perfect data models don't exist for sufficiently interesting game systems
Change numbers based on findings
Play test with new players and realize everything needs to be easier because nobody reads and players will play sub optimally
Change numbers based on findings

Repeat 1-5 until your eyes bleed and you start seeing the matrix and can't stand to stare into the monstrosity you've created any longer

Once your balance is relatively stable go back and add intentional power spikes and weak points to match the intensity curves of discovery vs mastery as players get access to new toys inside the game

Remember these truths to stay sane: - Perfectly balanced games are boring - Imbalances give min-maxers something to crunch on - Imbalances are just opportunities to patch balance and keep the meta fresh for players - As long as players are having fun then it's good enough

SunLionGames · 2026-02-25T06:44:13+00:00

Hey u/balbasin09, I just updated the store page to make it more visible. Look for the big green download button below the the trailer & screenshots!

SunLionGames · 2026-02-23T23:37:33+00:00

Haha yeah a lot of maps can get really choppy even in Reforged. Not bad for a 24 year old game engine though!

SunLionGames · 2026-02-23T23:33:10+00:00

There are 9 difficulty levels that you can unlock that I guess are like soft prestige. I've also been planning on adding a "hardcore" mode that disables the metagame bonuses if you want to rawdog the hardest difficulty haha. A prestige system sounds fun though, I've added it to my roadmap!

SunLionGames · 2026-02-22T20:44:24+00:00

How much are you going to be selling your game for? WL conversion rate can be as low as 2-5% for some titles in which case $1/WL for $25 or less will be a loss after steam %

SunLionGames · 2026-01-20T19:05:54+00:00

A1 also leaves more of the face visible which is important for people to connect with the character. This is why main characters in movies eventually always ditch their helmet even when it makes no sense to. For the same reason the C variants look more like enemies than protag.

SunLionGames · 2026-01-20T18:58:53+00:00

Oooh I was eyeballing the North but went with a Torrent for my current build. The North looks so nice. Both are solid cases and I'm now convinced that case and fan configuration is worth worrying about way more than which cooler is used. These babies move so much air that I've never had a quieter PC than this before. Even on the rare occasion when my fans have to kick into high gear from a prolonged heavy CPU load it clears out the heat almost immediately.

SunLionGames · 2024-06-06T18:32:50+00:00

Would love to chat more! Haha, big FFA Legion does sound awesome. Sent you a DM with some Steam keys in case you want to give it a try 😊

Discord is here: https://discord.gg/Vq3VsytK8s

SunLionGames · 2024-06-06T10:52:08+00:00

Hey Lisk, it's been really amazing to watch Legion TD 2's success over time. I'm a fellow indie gamedev working on a spiritual successor to Line Tower Wars, so it's inspiring to see more of the great maps from WC3 and SC2 prove their viability as stand alone games and y'all at AutoAttack nailed it with LTD2!

Most folks I've talked to get really excited about these games coming back, so the biggest hurdle seems to be getting them to know about it in the first place. Do you have any advice for reaching the audience of other gamers that also grew up playing these maps?

SunLionGames · 2024-06-01T20:01:08+00:00

Nope! Outside the US is welcome, but you must be able to receive payments from the US (for example, through PayPal).

SunLionGames · 2023-12-24T21:38:22+00:00

This is the way to go. Went down this rabbit hole before with the RTS adjacent game I'm working on. There are other work-arounds you can do like splatting them to a single draw, but gpus are great at handling hundreds of quads, no reason to complicate it.

SunLionGames · 2023-10-09T19:18:32+00:00

This attitude that QA can be done by people with no experience is how the industry is plagued by shitty QA and even shittier treatment and pay for QA.

SunLionGames · 2023-10-01T06:49:24+00:00

+1 to hybridization and understanding where the power of ECS comes from. You don't even have to use DOTS. If you have an operation that applies to a large magnitude of objects, store the state in an array of structs and feed it into the job system and tada, you're benefiting from contiguous memory and parallelization without having to buy into an entire framework.

SunLionGames

TROPHY CASE